Ben Cooks Everything

This soup is a variation on Minestrone, or Chunky Vegetable Soup, depending on which heading you want to go by. I’d say Chunky Vegetable, because this isn’t what I think of when I think of Minestrone. When you mix some pesto in, it becomes Pistou, a warming, earthy bowl of soup perfect for these chilly fall days. I used homemade chicken stock, diced pumpkin, some end of season cherry tomatoes and wheat berries for heft. (more…)

Manchurian-Style Cauliflower is an involved recipe that involved frying cauliflower and then tossing it in a ketchup based mixture. It’s based on a street food popular in Calcutta’s Chinatown, and it looks great! I made the easier, faster, healthier Roasted Cauliflower, Manchurian Style variation, which just seems like a way to ruin perfectly good roasted caulifliower. (more…)

Carrots (I used some baby carrots, but whole carrots cut into coins or sticks work well too) go into a small saucepan with some butter or olive oil, a little water, and some salt and pepper. Bring it all to a boil, cover and simmer until the carrots are tender and the liquid’s pretty much all evaporated. That’s pretty much it, you’ve got quick-glazed carrots. Side dishees don’t get much easier. Of course Bittman lists four variations and a list of 6 more ways to spin the recipe, including mixing in a tablespoon each of miso paste and soy sauce, which is what I did. Fantastic: the salty punch helps balance out the super sweet cooked carrots. (more…)

Nevertheless, the fast version is terrific, and recalls what, to me, is one of the basic tenets of real cooking in the contemporary world. You can put it this way: “Perfect is the enemy of good enough.” Or you can say, “compromise is essential in practical cooking,” or “I’d rather eat a good version of a dish than sit around and think about the ideal one.” No matter how you put it, this is core to my beliefs.

-Bittman offers something of a manifesto over at the Times’ Diner’s Journal blog, writing about streamlining recipes and this week’s Minimalist column. Go read the whole thing.

For a book that promotes healthier eating, or sane eating, as Bittman prefers to call it, the Food Matters Cookbook is full of curveballs, interesting dishes that take an idea, spin it, and end up with something completely unexpected.  This dish is built like a chili, but it plays out like something else entirely. Whatever it is, it’s something delicious, whether or not it’s chili.  The tofu absorbs a ton of flavor and it texture approaches something like meatiness–and I say that as someone very dubious of any meatless but “meatlike” products.* (more…)

I just made the greatest loaf of bread ever. Okay, maybe not the greatest loaf of bread ever, but one that is so staggeringly delicious and seemingly professional that I can’t believe it came out of my kitchen. Click “more” for bread porn, and more on the recipe. (more…)

I decided it was time to make the first batch of potato leek soup of the season, and some toaster croutons (fast and dirty: drizzle a piece of bread with some olive oil and salt, toast it, cut it up into croutons). Soup weather is here for sure. Click ‘more’ for some other favorite soups. (more…)

Flipping through the Food Matters Cookbook shortly after receiving my copy in the mail, certain recipes jumped out at me immediately. Falafel Pancakes was definitely one of those recipes. (more…)

You guys, let’s talk about this week’s Minimalist column. Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce is something I’ve blogged about here before, but like Bittman, I make it all the time during the summer. For me, it’s the best way to take advantage of fresh, in-season tomatoes, and it takes to just about anything you want to mix in. Fresh basil, pesto from the freezer, pesto from Russo’s, minced garlic, veggies, you name it. (more…)

The Food Matters Cookbook is really kind of a hoot. Take as an example this deep purple dish of black beans flavored and colored with grated beets, red cabbage and red onions. The result is a hearty stew that’s delicious and striking in presentation. Click ‘more’ to continue. (more…)